Tag: jewish

What is a Jew?

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That is an age-old question.

A Jew is someone who was born of a Jewish mother. However, there are different views on that because according to the Orthodox, once born a Jew, always a Jew, but the Reform Jews believe if a Jew converts, he or she is no longer Jewish.

A Jew is someone who is a descendant of Judah, the 4th son of Jacob.

A Jew is someone who is from Y’hudah, or Judah (Judea).

A Jew is someone who speaks Hebrew.

I once read that some Rabbi had said anyone who worships the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a Jew.

A Jew is one of the Chosen people of God.

The Replacement Theologists will tell you that they, the Right-Wing Christians, are now the only “real” Jews (their justification for saying this is that since the “old” Jews rejected Jesus, God has rejected them. That’s just plain silly.)

So, nu? What is a Jew, or more correctly phrased, who is a Jew?

If you ask me (and by reading this blog, you are pretty much asking), there are two kinds of Jews:

  1. Someone who is a descendant of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through one of the 12 sons of Jacob; or
  2. A Jew is someone who worships God the way God wants to be worshiped, which means worshiping God in accordance with the Torah.

Now, does that imply if someone who was born of Jewish parents but converts, or simply doesn’t worship God according to the Torah, is not a Jew? Or, if someone is a Gentile but worships God in accordance with the Torah, is now a Jew without any formal conversion classes, circumcision, etc?

My answer is: Yes. To both.

Again, for me, the term “Jew” or “Jewish” is not confined to the practice of Judaism- after all, there are 6 sects within Judaism: Chasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Messianic. They are so very different in their daily practice that they could almost be considered separate religions.

And as I have always said and will always say: God has no religion.

Someone who is born from Jewish parents is a Jew, but if they do not practice Judaism (any one of the above forms) then how can they be identified as a Jew? If you’re born into a Quaker family but have a cell phone, watch TV, and own a car, how can you call yourself a Quaker? You are not living as a Quaker lives, so you can’t be a Quaker.

God separated the Jewish people from everyone else in the world. To help keep them that way, He gave them the Torah, His set of instructions on how to worship Him and how to treat each other. In other words, how to live a “Jewish” life.

People don’t mean what they say, they mean what they do- I have said that often, and will continue to say it because it is a simple and absolute truth about human nature. Therefore, if I say I am a Jew but I do not live (or, at least, try to live) and worship God in accordance with the Torah He gave us, then how can I call myself a “Jew”? I can’t, because what I do is not ‘Jewish.’

This all started with Abraham, who had no justification to call himself a Jew- he didn’t come from Judea, he didn’t have Jewish parents, and he didn’t worship in accordance with Torah because there wasn’t any Torah. And yet, pretty much everyone considers him the Father of the Jewish people. I would call him a Jew for one reason, and one reason only- he worshiped God as God said he should. That is why I believe a Jew is anyone, no matter which religion they were born into, who worships God as God said we should.

In the letter to the newly Messianic congregation in Ephesus, Shaul (Paul) tells them that the difference between the way people worship will be all gone because through Messiah there will be one, new man- a person who, spiritually, will be separate and distinct, and who will find total peace in his (or her) worship of God by following what Yeshua (Jesus) taught. And, for the record, Yeshua did not teach anything different from what the Torah says. He did not, as we have been lied to for millennia, create a new religion or teach that Torah is no longer valid- the truth is that Yeshua taught us not just the word of Torah but the deeper meaning, the “drash” of God’s word, so that we would not just live it, but be living examples of it, as He was.

And God tells us that anyone who sojourns with the Jewish people is to be treated as one of them, as an adopted son or daughter of Abraham. God, Himself, tells us throughout the Tanakh that anyone, no matter who they were born from, is an adopted son or daughter of Abraham if they worship God in accordance with His Torah.

Therefore: if anyone asks me what a Jew is, I will say someone who worships the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the way God said to worship Him, which is in accordance with the Torah. That’s it: it’s that simple, it’s that easy to understand, it’s that basic.

It doesn’t matter what religion you were born into, how you were raised or where you are from, if you believe in God and worship Him as the Torah says to, you are a Jew.

And if you do all that, and also accept that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised us, then you are a Jew who has found fullness and completion of Torah in that you have found and are one with the Messiah.

It don’t get no better than that!

“Doing Your Best” is just premeditated failure

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How many times have we said, “I’ll do my best” , meaning that we would try to achieve whatever it is we wanted to accomplish?

But is that really what we do? I will confess that saying “I will do my best” usually means I will try. I will attempt to accomplish that goal, but I am already prepared to fail and feel alright about it, so long as I feel I have made a real effort.

That is fine with the world- the world says give it a shot, but if you fail you are still an OK person. It’s not your fault if you fail, and as long as you feel, in your heart, you have tried to do your best then no one can say anything about it.

Well, golly gee! That’s all I need to hear. Considering I am a self-centered, self-absorbed and rationalizing (not rational, but rationalizing) human being, you have just given me the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Just as long as I feel I have tried, I can say I gave it my best shot.

Yoda told the truth when he heard Luke said “I’ll try” to lift his spaceship out of the murky swamp: Yoda said, “Do, or do not- there is no try.”

God wants us to do, or do not. He is patient, compassionate and understanding. He knows how weak we are, how self-absorbed (I like that term because it is just so appropriate to people, isn’t it?) and how sinful, in both acts and nature, we humans are. Yet, in His Torah I do not recall anytime or anyplace where He says there are partial sins; He doesn’t tell us that we can bring to sacrifice what we feel is good enough, or to act as nice to a neighbor as we feel like. God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves; He tells us to bring the best grain, the finest flour, animals without blemish- not the best we can find, but the best, period. Not try to act the best way we can, but act as He says we should.

God commands us, over and over, to be holy because He is holy. Not to try, or “do our best”- He commands us to BE!

There is a big difference between trying and doing. Trying gets you nothing, doing gets you everything.  What God wants is for us to be good; not to try, not to do our best, but to be good.

It is hard. In all fairness, we are weak, we are not able to be good all the time. It is a fact, but not an excuse. It is also a fact that we can be good more then we have been. We can sin less today than we sinned yesterday. We can be better; we can be more obedient; we can stop eating things we aren’t supposed to; we can treat people with more compassion. And we can constantly be better than we have been.

We can never be sinless, but we always can sin less. 

We should not say we will try our best, we should say we will do better. That is the goal- to do better. It is attainable, it is possible, and it is what will please the Lord.

God knows we cannot be as holy as He is, and He also knows we can be holier than we are: that is the “do” in our lives.

The Bible is the ultimate Self Help book, and it will teach you how, with God’s help, you can stop trying and start being.

 

 

Parashah Emor (Speak) Leviticus 21 – 24

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There is enough in here to fill a book. I could write a whole chapter of a book just on Leviticus 23, the designations of the Holy Days…oh wait! I already did- it’s Chapter 7 in my book.

God tells Moses and Aaron the requirements for priesthood: about who they can marry, keeping clean (ceremonially) and who may eat of the holy foods. He also tells them those who serve must not have a blemish or an unnatural (today we would say challenged) physique.

It also, as I mentioned above, designates the Festivals of the Lord, the 7 Holy Days (not holidays, but Holy Days- read my book) that God has separated and commanded us to observe:

The Sabbath

Passover Passover is not 7 days long: it is just from the evening meal until midnight, when the angel passed over.

Hag Ha Matzot The next seven days are called Hag ha Matzot, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. First Fruits is also celebrated the first day after the first Shabbat after Passover starts.

Shavuot Festival of Weeks, which includes the counting of the Omer and is celebrated by Christians as the Pentecost (50 days). For Jews it celebrates also the giving of the Torah, although that is civil, not biblical.

Rosh HaShanah The bible declares this day as Yom T’Ruah, the memorial celebration with sounding of trumpets. The civil holiday it has become is a new year celebration. According to God, the new year begins 14 days before the Passover, with the month of Aviv (now called Nissan)

Yom Kippur The Day of Atonement is when we ask God to move from the Seat of Judgment to the Seat of Mercy and forgive us for our sinfulness and the sins we have committed. Of course, we are to ask forgiveness every day, but this was a special time, and the only time that the Cohen HaGadol, the High Priest, was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies.

Sukkot The Festival of Tabernacles is when we build small tabernacles, or open roofed shelters and live in them for a week, to recall the way we lived in the desert for 40 years. Today (not from Torah but a Rabbinical add-on) we also celebrate Sh’mini Atzeret, the Eighth Day, also called Simchat Torah (Joy of Torah). On that day we read the final lines of the Torah, then while the congregation sings (and dances in some synagogues) the Torah is turned back to the beginning, and the cycle of reading starts all over again.

The one thing I want to discuss today is at the very end of this parashah. Leviticus 24:22, where God says:

Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for the home-born; for I am the Lord, your God

This command is one of the most important of all commandments in the Torah, as far as I am concerned, because it signifies clearly that God makes no distinction between your geographic origin, your parent’s beliefs, or whether you are white, black, or multi-colored: as far as God is concerned, His laws are for everyone and it doesn’t matter where you are from or how you were raised. There is only one God, Adonai; there are only His rules and laws; like them or not, you are subject to them if you say you worship Him.

If you profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then these laws are for you. Period.

Most, if not all, Christian religions teach differently, and any religion that says these Holy Days do not need to be observed or that any part of the Torah is not necessary, by definition that religion cannot be worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

If you are being told the Torah, the holy days in Leviticus 23, or that the Old Covenant is all just “Jewish” stuff, then you need to find out who you are worshiping, because it ain’t the God Moses worshiped!

 

Parashah Metzora (Leper) Leviticus 14 and 15

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Continuing the laws of cleanliness, Chapter 14 deals with leprosy of the body and any infectious contamination that spreads to the plastering on the walls of the house.  Chapter 15 deals with bodily secretions, such as when a woman has a discharge during her menstrual cycle or a man with a seminal secretion.

You would think, this being the Bible and all, you wouldn’t find mention of such graphic and disgusting things. Yet, having read through the Bible many times, there isn’t a part of the body, and I mean ANY part of the body, that isn’t mentioned or referred to very specifically in the Bible, somewhere.

So, you have a skin disease, your house has mold or something similar, you are bleeding or exuding some liquid from your body- you are unclean. Whether it is contagious or not, you are unclean. Everything you touch becomes unclean, and anyone who touches what you touched or is touched by you becomes unclean. The only difference is that the clean who touched the unclean must wash themselves and their clothes, and after doing so at evening (meaning the start of the next day) they are clean. When you become unclean by association you wash and for the rest of that day you are unclean, but then you are clean (mostly meaning ceremonial, or having to do with entering the Sanctuary area) the next day. If you are the source of the uncleanliness, you are always unclean until, according to the rules stipulated in these chapters, the Cohen declares you no longer unclean, you make the appropriate sacrifice, and then you are accepted back into the camp and the Sanctuary.

The simple truth is that these laws deal with outward evidence of being physically unclean- we are, all of us, unclean in our hearts. We are born with the Yetzer Hara, the Evil Inclination, and we have to overcome this. As Yeshua said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible; hence, we have a Messiah to be the ultimate soap, if you will, to cleanse us spiritually so that we can come before God, tabernacle notwithstanding, and be clean before Him.

The warning in today’s Parashah is about not dying in one’s uncleanness by entering the Sanctuary when unclean. The intimation is that if you enter the Sanctuary unclean, you will be killed, and thus not just die, but die unclean. Not what you want, really. When we accept Yeshua as Messiah and ask forgiveness of our sins in His name, it is His righteousness that cleanses us so we can come before God clean. The cleanliness of our bodies is still important: when they say cleanliness is close to godliness, these chapters about clean and unclean should dispel any doubts about the accuracy and biblical confirmation of that old saw. But, yet, more than physically, or even ceremonially, clean, we need to be spiritually clean. We need to be more than clean outside, we need to be clean inside. Didn’t Yeshua tell us that it isn’t what goes into us that makes us unclean, but what comes out of our hearts?  Read Matthew 15:11 and Mark 7:15 to see what He said.

The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is what cleans us, inside and spiritually, and to receive it we have to ask. But we won’t want to ask until we are ready to be clean, until we want to wash our hearts and minds of the dirt that we are born into because of this cursed world we exist in. We have to do T’shuvah before we can really clean up our act (pun intended) and want to ask for the Ruach.

No one would go to the Cohen to get diagnosed until they saw the evidence of their disease, and wanted to be clean. We need to see the evidence of our disease, our sinful nature and accept what we do as truly being wrong; we need to stop rationalizing what we do as acceptable and start realizing what we do as wrong. That’s the first step. Next we have to truly want to stop doing wrong, that’s called T’shuvah, or turning from sin. Now we can come to the Cohen, either a religious leader as a Rabbi or Minister or Pastor or Priest, and ask them for help.

In truth, even a good friend can do the same- you need to find a spiritually mature person who can help you to be cleansed and then you clean yourself with water; not water from a sink but the everlasting water that we only get from Yeshua ha Maschiach.

The best thing is that once cleansed by Yeshua’s blood, you don’t have to wait until evening to be clean.

This is a simple lesson- to be clean forever the steps are:

  1. Confess that you are dirty
  2. Do T’shuvah
  3. Accept Yeshua as your Messiah and ask for His intercession before God
  4. Pray to God for forgiveness, calling on the name of Yeshua (not praying to Yeshua, but praying to God and asking that God accept you as one of the sheep that Yeshua owns)
  5. Ask for the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) and accept it
  6. Be prepared to fight against your nature for the rest of your life.

And remember: you can be strengthened in that fight knowing you now have the hope of eternal joy and peace, which you can also find here on Earth, through the Ruach HaKodesh.

God loves you enough to punish me

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And God loves me enough to punish you, too.

Sounds a little backwards, doesn’t it? If God loves you, why punish me? To me the answer is very simple to understand- God is just and true, dependable, and righteous. That means, despite how much He loves every one of us, He will do as He says He will do when it comes to the unrepentant and sinful at Judgment Day.

I get really sick to my stomach when I hear people who talk about God only in terms of His love. Yes, love is important, and yes, love is what we are to do to each other, and yes, God is love.

But He is also righteousness, He is also truth, He is also very hard to follow in a world that hates and rejects not just Him, but all those who follow Him. Yeshua said to follow Him we must give up everything that we have held dear, even those things that we were raised with, people we know and love, but are sinful . Sin is very comfortable and fits us like a glove, whereas righteousness needs an expert tailor to make it feel (at least) wearable.  Love helps to overcome, but it doesn’t overcome everything.

I think the people who only want to talk about God as love, loving everyone and every single thing, and their discussion always comes down to how God loves us are probably enablers in their own lives. Love is not acceptance of wrongdoing; love is not acceptance of sin; love is not acceptance of improper behavior.  Do you think Yeshua showed “love” when He made a whip of cords and drove out the businessmen from the Temple courts? Did they feel the love? And what about when God sent fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah? Or the fire that destroyed the (total of) 100 men who came after Elijah?

Or the death of Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts? And the way Yeshua talked to the Pharisees? Insulting them, calling them “white-washed sepulchers?” Was that a term of endearment?

God is totally just and His love is truly remarkable, but that isn’t all He is about. He is about zealousness for His laws, determination to live as He says and not as the world demands, and strength and honesty. God is not about lovey-dovey dreck: He is a strong and glorious God who is about truth, devotion, faithful obedience, and love. But love for what is right also makes Him a jealous and fearful God! God is love, all right, but not human “mamby-pampy everything is love, you are love, I am love, God is love, love love love, love is all you need” kind of love.

God is about the hard love that brings people into righteousness.

I accept God as my God, I accept Yeshua as the Messiah God sent to us, and I also accept that love is the keystone of salvation, but it is not the whole building. There is also the need for punishment for those who reject God. If we can’t trust God to punish the wicked, we can’t trust Him to reward the righteous. It’s that simple- God is totally binomial: right or wrong, truth or lie, just or unjust. If you notice, throughout the bible when God gives us a commandment, those who violate it first are punished most severely, and it seems that later on people catch a break. In Numbers we read how the man that gathered sticks on Shabbat, right after God said do not work, was stoned to death, but in Ezra’s day they bought and sold on Shabbat and no one was killed for it. Yes, it was a bit later, but God is the same today, tomorrow and yesterday, so His laws are just as important today and tomorrow as they were yesterday.  God’s mercy, which comes from His love, prevented us from totally destroying ourselves. He gave us His laws and when we first violated them His punishment was swift and terrible, but as we continued to violate His laws His mercy showed (mercy from love) in His tolerance for our wrongdoing. But that didn’t stop Him from punishing Shomron and dispersing His people throughout the world, and it didn’t stop Him from destroying His own house and nearly destroying Judea.

The ultimate sign of His love was sending Yeshua, His only begotten Son, to die so that we can be absolved of our own sinfulness.

God’s love for us doesn’t override His punishment for those that don’t love Him back, and I don’t think that He expects us to allow sin in our lives or to accept sin from others. We are to be holy, meaning separated, from the society of the world. We are to hate the sin, and love the sinner. But not love them to the point where we accept what they do in the name of love- we are to reject the sinner who continues to sin. We are to ostracize those who sin, even our own brothers and sisters. Those who plow and look back are not fit for the kingdom of God, so said Yeshua, which means we must go forth and not cling to the past. Our past is sin, our present is grace, and our future is salvation- as long as we walk the walk.

Love is fine, love is good, and as Shaul said, without love, I/you/we are nothing. But love doesn’t conquer all: sin is not acceptable, ever. Love the people in your life, even though they are sinners, but make it clear that their sin is not acceptable and if they refuse to stop sinning in your presence, then vomit them out of your life. Not right away, not without trying to save them, and not every single one of them because even Believers sin. I can’t draw a line in the dirt for you telling you exactly when you should reject someone and when you keep trying to save them; you need to determine that on your own with the guidance of the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit.)

What I am trying to say is that love is fine and love is wonderful, but it may be the alpha and omega, but there is plenty of stuff in between, and we need to recognize all the factors that go into living a righteous life. If we want to live as Yeshua lived we need to understand this: It ain’t easy being Him!

Messianics 101: Approaching Jews about Jesus

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First rule: don’t use the name “Jesus”- use “Yeshua.” The name “Jesus” brings up too many unwelcome memories to Jews, such as “Christ killer”. I grew up being called that by all the Catholic school kids. In the past decade or so Catholicism has “lightened up” on us Jews, but there is too much history to make a Jew comfortable with the name Jesus. And there are still many modern-day Christians who push Replacement Theology, which is an insult to God as much as it is to Jews. Even after understanding the truth of who Jesus is, knowing the Jewish Messiah Yeshua for nearly 20 years now, I am still uncomfortable with “Jesus.” And don’t even start me on the word “Christ!”

Second Rule: don’t quote from the New Covenant writings. Jews don’t believe it is Scripture, they have been told that Jesus created a new religion (that hates Jews) and the New Covenant is what He wrote (not true, of course, but that doesn’t really even matter.) You need to be totally familiar with the Messianic passages in the Tanakh. You also need to know more about the Tanakh than the Jewish person you are talking to, or at least enough to impress them that you have some knowledge of, and respect for, Judaism. The fact is, if you don’t know the Old Covenant and the Messianic scriptures that define who Yeshua is and what He will do, then you shouldn’t minister to anyone because you aren’t fully prepared. Counting on the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is fine and useful and biblically sound, but you still need to know enough to talk to a Jew like a Jew if you want to get through to a Jew. Nu?

Third Rule: Don’t tell, ask. Believe me, when you start to talk to a Jew about Yeshua, and you talk about Isaiah 53, and Jeremiah 31:31 and Joel, and Zachariah, and all the other 144 or so Messianic passages in the Tanakh (and you should know what “Tanakh” means) you can tell a Jewish person all there is and when you think you’ve sold them, they’ll simply say they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, “Because He isn’t, that’s all!”  That’s what they have been taught for centuries; in fact, for more than two 2 millenniums. The best way (take it from an old “sales” pro) to make someone accept what you say against what they have been told is not to tell them why something is so. You start out by making them doubt what they think is the truth as maybe not really being all that true. “And how”, you may ask, “do I do that?” The answer is: you don’t tell, you ask.  Instead of telling them all the reasons you know why Yeshua (remember: we don’t use the “j-word”) is the Messiah, ask them why they think Yeshua is not the Messiah. I can almost guarantee that 99.9% of the time, the answer will be, “Because He’s not, that’s why.” And they answer that way because that is what they have been told is the truth by parents, by their Zayda and Bubbe, by their Rabbi, by everyone they know who is Jewish. He just isn’t, that’s all there is to it. Once you get to that point, you can then ask these questions, in this order:

  1. Do you think that recognizing the Messiah when He comes, no matter who he is, is important? (if they say no, don’t waste any more time on this one)

  2. When you have to make an important decision, do you feel better doing it with good information or by just blindly guessing? (again, if they say guessing is fine, move on)

  3. (If you make it to this question, here’s what you say next) Well, then I’m confused: You say you want good information yet you have nothing but, “Just because.” You are choosing your eternal future on no information instead of listening to good information. (Don’t pause to let them speak but go right into the kicker)…If I told you there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and are still 100% Jewish, practicing Judaism exactly as you do, holy days, Shabbat, Torah, everything exactly as you have been brought up doing, would you be interested in hearing  just a little more about Messianic Judaism?

These are the essential three steps to ministering to Jews. If the answer to that last question is, “Yes”, then you have planted a seed. Now you have to let it grow, at it’s own pace. Now you can tell them more about the Tanakh passages and, since they doubt what they knew to be true (which is, essentially, you can’t believe in Jesus and still be Jewish) and are open to the real truth, you can take the Tanakh passage and relate it directly to the New Covenant passage. And remember, also (this is VERY important) to point out that the New Covenant is NOT a new religion, Yeshua never taught against the Torah or Judaism, and that the New Covenant is the eye-witness account about a Jew, written by Jews, of what happened to Jews. That is also the description of the Old Covenant, isn’t it? Eye-witness account written by Jews of what happened to Jews.

If you can master these questions, and deliver them with the compassionate understanding that for thousands of years Jewish people have been told believing in Jesus is being a traitor to your family and to God, then you have a good chance of helping Jews to find and know their own Messiah.

If you “bible-pound” Jewish people with threats of hell and eternal damnation and quote from the New Covenant, you might as well “kick against the goads” and not even waste your breath. Being a Jew I can tell you this: Jews will not be able to accept the truth about who and what Yeshua is until they can get past all that they have been told He isn’t.

Here is an absolute truth: people believe only half of what you tell them, but 100% of what they say. You need to get them to doubt what they believe before you have a chance of them listening to what you have to tell them.

free Will or predestination?

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I was reading (in the New Covenant writings) some of the Epistles to the Messianic Communities in the Diaspora this weekend and noticed how Shaul (Paul) and Kefa (Peter) write in a way that seems to indicate God has predestined those who will be saved.

We have Ephesians 1:5 (“Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,…“) and Romans 8:29-30 (“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”)

Even in Psalm 139: 16 it says, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

There are other verses in the Bible that seem to indicate we were chosen beforehand, that we are the elect, the special ones who have found favor, yadda-yadda-yadda. It got me wondering if there really is something to the idea of predestination, which says God has already made His decision about who will go and who will not.

But then I came to my senses. I thought that if we are predestined, then the prayers for my children, and everyone else’s prayers for those who are not saved to be saved, are useless. The divine commission to make disciples is a waste of time because those who are chosen will become disciples without us and those who are rejected , well, tough luck! Why waste my breath, why “kick against the goads”  to make Believers out of non-believers if those who are to be will be and those who are not to be are already screwed?

Ridiculous, isn’t it?  All these verses don’t mean that an individual is chosen and another individual is rejected, it means that God has formed the way for everyone to find salvation through Messiah Yeshua. It means that what He has done is to choose life for us and provide the means for us to take hold of it.

In Ezekiel 18 God says that he doesn’t want anyone to die and that He wishes all sinners would turn from their sin, and live. God isn’t a liar, so if He wants people to turn from their sins, then he must have made it possible for us to make our own decisions about what we do or don’t do.

Ergo: Free Will.

Another argument for free will is that God owns everything, He is in control of everything (although that doesn’t mean He does control everything- He can, but He chooses what to control and what to leave alone) and yet, there is one thing that He cannot control or have unless we give it to Him: our love, faithfulness and obedience. If we have the ability to choose to give God our love and faith, then we have the ability to choose to reject Him.

Ability to choose is called Free Will.

Next time you run into a Calvinist, or anyone who says that God has predetermined or predestined those who will be saved, enlighten that person with Ezekiel 18 and the above argument for free will. You can even throw this in, if it comes down to it: if God has chosen who will be saved and who won’t, then why did He need to send Messiah Yeshua to die for our sins?  After all, those chosen are already in and those rejected have no chance, so why provide a means through which your fate can be changed?  If your fate is sealed before you are born, then why tell us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved?

Without free will, this whole Messiah “thing” makes absolutely no sense.

God has given us free will: it was evident in the Garden, it is clear throughout the history of the Jewish people and the writings of the New Covenant. It is clear from the many times God has stated through the Psalms and the prophets that He wants us to turn from our sin so that we can live. Why ask us to turn if He has already decided?

I’ll tell you who really doesn’t want you to have free will- religion. That thing called “religion” is dogmatic, stoic, and enabling. It doesn’t want you to think, it wants you to follow. It doesn’t want you to question, it wants you to obey, blindly. It doesn’t want you to decide for yourself what is the truth, it wants you accept without question what it tells you is the truth.

God has no religion, only rules. He tells us how to worship Him, and how to treat each other. And we have the right, the God-given right, to decide for ourselves if we will do what God says or not.

Free will is a two-edged sword: it cuts both ways. Do as God says and the world will hate you, do as the world says and you have to reject God (He still loves you, but His judgment will be righteous.) So, whatever you choose, understand that it is your choice. If you choose to do what you are told by religion, without question or investigation, that is a choice.

We all have been given free will to make out own choice- better make sure it’s the right one!

Do sinners go to heaven?

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I certainly hope so! If not, all of us are in BIG trouble!

The real question is: do unrepentant sinners go to heaven?  I think I can safely say the answer to that question is: NO! Not a chance. Not happening. Close the door on your way out.

Sin is part of our nature, it is the Yetzer Hara, the Evil Inclination, we are all born with. Call it Original Sin, call it whatever you want to, but, as the Bard of Avon said, “What’s in a name?” Any way you look at it, we are, all of us, sinful in nature, sinful in actions and thoughts, and the only difference between me being a sinner before I was saved and me being a sinner now that I am saved is that now I am saved, AND (that’s a big “a-n-d”) I am repentant. I sin, but I don’t want to sin. My actions do not match my attitude.

Shaul said it in Romans 7:15 when he confessed, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

For those who have Yeshua Ha Maschiach at their side, as their Intercessor and Arbiter with the Lord when we come before Him at Judgment Day, we are saved from our sins when we repent of them and call upon His blood to cleanse us from them.

It is not the sin as much as it is the willful act of sinning which separates us from God.

God tells us through the Prophets, over and over, that He is more concerned with the desire of our hearts than He is for sacrifices.

Check out these few examples:

Isiah 1:11- 1:20, ” The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings!  Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless;   plead the case of the widow. ‘Come now, let us settle the matter’, says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’ For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

1 Samuel 15:22,  “But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

Proverbs 21:3, “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”

Hosea 6:6, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Get it? It’s all about obedience- not from fear of death or destruction, but from fear of the Lord, as in respect, honor, faithful trusting, and love. That is what God wants of us, that is what He desires, and that is the only thing that we can give Him. God owns everything there is in the Universe, and what isn’t here now He can create. What He can’t have without us giving it to Him is our love, our obedience and our trust. These are the really important things to God.

Accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah, as your Savior, confessing Him to be the Son of God, all that is good so long as you mean it.  And the only way to show you mean it is to change your behavior by changing your attitude. Only good trees provide good fruit, and your fruit better be good if you intend to present it to the Lord.

There is an old Jewish proverb: You can’t stop a bird from landing in a tree, but you can keep it from building a nest there. In other words, we will not be able to stop that initial reaction, that first thought, what we think at the first glance, but we can control what happens after that.

Yes, sinners go to heaven. And sinners that are really saved are changing their attitude. They are overcoming, slowly but surely, their Yetzer Hara and maturing and strengthening their Yetzer Tov (Good Inclination) so that their obedience to God’s Torah is from their heart.

God wants us to want to obey Him from desire to please Him. Yes, obedience brings blessings, and there ain’t nothing wrong with receiving blessings! But that’s not what it is really about.

God can have anything and everything He wants without anything from us, except our obedience and love. Tithe, do Tzedakah, give of your time to those in need and you are doing to God that which pleases Him.

 

Does God change His mind?

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Yes, He does. How can anyone say He doesn’t?

He changed His mind when Abraham asked Him to spare Sodom and Gemorrah if He found just 10 honest men there. He changed His mind when He allowed the enemy to harass Job (first it was don’t touch Job, then He allowed Job to be touched.) He changed His mind when He sent Jonah to Ninevah (after they repented). He changed His mind about destroying the Israelites after their sin with the Golden Calf.

And that’s just off the top of my head. I’ll wager I could find a few more times He changed His mind.

But then how are we to trust in salvation? If God changes His mind about those things then He can change His mind about His gift of salvation, too, right?

Of course He can…but He won’t. How can I be so sure? Not because of the fact that God changes His mind about things, but because of which things He changes His mind about.

God never has gone back on His word regarding the good things He has done for us: He has honored His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; to Moses,; to David; to Solomon, etc. and so on and so on.

As the Psalm says, His love endures forever. Fortunately, His anger doesn’t.

God changes His mind (sometimes) about destruction and punishment. Even when he continues through with His righteous and just punishment/judgment, He does so with mercy and compassion. It is always (and only) with regard to judgment and punishment that God has changed His mind. Everything else He says He will do, He does. Everything else He said He would provide, He has provided. Everything else He says He will make happen, He has made happen.

We can trust God totally to do whatever good He has said He will do for us, and also hope eternally that He will be merciful and flexible regarding His judgments upon us, all of which we always deserve.

There is nothing wrong about changing our minds, and (in truth) the people who don’t change their minds are the ones not to trust. I once read that good managers are the ones that can make decisions quickly and change them slowly, and bad managers take a long time to make a decision, and then change their minds quickly.

God is certainly a good manager. He has changed His mind only for certain times when He said He would punish the sinners, but never about the promises He has made regarding our land, salvation or His protection and love. And absolutely NEVER about anything in the Torah. The followers of Replacement Theology should remember that next time they profess that God has abandoned the Jewish people. Hasn’t happened, ain’t happening now, and ain’t evah gonna happen.

Those who are repentant, have accepted Messiah Yeshua as their Messiah and who have done T’shuvah in their heart will receive all those good promises about salvation; so long as they maintain their proper attitude and continue to worship God as He said we should, continue to move forward spiritually in maturity, constantly working towards the goal.

Don’t be concerned that God has changed His mind about judgement- He will judge the unrighteous and unrepentant as they deserve, and even they might still receive mercy. Not absolution, not getting off free, but merciful judgment. And those who are faithfully obedient and continue to work towards the goal will be rewarded with every good promise God has made about salvation.

You can bank on it because that’s how God rolls.

 

Leaders need to lead

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Isaiah says that we are all like sheep, easily led astray to do evil. We are also just plain, easily led stray.

People want to be led, not to lead. Oh, they want to be in charge, all right- everyone wants to be able to talk and have everyone else listen. But that sort of authority comes at a price- you have to be responsible for what they all do and for what happens when they do it. It’s all on your head when you are in charge.

I think that’s why people want to be led- no responsibility, no blame, no worries.

Also no hope, no control and nowhere to go but were you’re told to go.

There can not be a lot of leaders- we all know that old expression, “Too many cooks spoil the broth”, and we certainly don’t want our broth to spoil. But, we do need leadership in our lives, and in our churches and synagogues. Leadership is what moves us, what keeps us motivated, and what causes change.

Oy! Wait a minute! I am all for leaders moving and motivating us, but change? That’s a dirty word- I just want things to stay the same. I’m comfortable, I am happy, I know what to expect.

Do you know what the word is for something that doesn’t change? Stagnation.

Will Rogers once said that even if you are on the right track, if you just sit there you’re bound to get run over. Change is how we survive, and if the leadership isn’t willing to create change, then that church or synagogue is already an endangered species. And if there isn’t an inflow of new ideas and actions, it will become extinct.

Change is the main responsibility of leadership. Management and leadership are two sides of the same coin- but they are drastically different in their purpose. Leadership is moving, dynamic, and flexible whereas management is supposed to keep everything stable while the leadership is shaking everything up. It is a very special sort of dance, and when the partners are working together as a team, it is beautiful.

Is your church or synagogue changing? Is it growing? Is it offering you something exciting and new, while maintaining those things that shouldn’t change, such as worship, teaching the word and being responsive to the congregation? Not to forget missionary ministry. You can’t grow if you aren’t finding new members.

If not, then either offer yourself to help or find some place that does these things. If your leadership isn’t really leading, then it’s following. And since those who follow don’t ask questions, you might be being led into a hole. Remember that Yeshua told us when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a hole.

Keep your eyes open, be compassionate and understanding, but also be aware that if your leadership isn’t leading, then you need to get them on the ball or you need to go somewhere where there is leadership.

There is nothing wrong with questioning leadership. It is not disrespectful, it is not impudent; in fact, it is the responsibility of every member of an organization to keep their leadership in line and accountable.

Join in and help your leadership- there are plenty of sheep, so be a ram. At least, be a sheep that will question where you are being led.

When it comes down to it, we will all be held accountable for ourselves, and our decisions. If your decision is to let someone else make your decision, well, that’s still your decision. If that person makes the wrong decision, it’s your tuchas on the line, too!

Stagnation feels comfortable, but it is a slow death.